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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
 Posted - 07/22/2012 : 5:36:50 PM
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I'll start posting photos of our cruise up the inland passage of Alaska which we did July 10 to 17, 2012. We started in Seattle, day at sea, Tracy Arm Fyord, Skagway, Juneau, Ketchican, Vitoria and back to Seattle.
I will try and indicate the day and location on each photo as I post them. I will start with Seattle Day 1 and work on as I get the photos cleaned up and sized for posting here. Most were done in Fine mode which results in photos from 8 MB to 13MB. After cleaning up they size at about 10 MB to 16MB. These have to be sized down to around 120 KB to post so understand the time involved in working 3,000+ photos to find the best ones to post here.
All comments are welcome but I would appreciate no one else posting photos in this thread so the sequence is maintainted.
thanks,
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Walt
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2012 : 5:54:17 PM
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Day one was Seattle. Following are shots as we prepared to ship out for Alaska.
Ours and everyone else's luggage on the dock getting loaded.
Sun Deck (10) there were 12 decks on the Carnival Spirit. The Spirit is being redeployed to Australia this fall and will be replaced by the Carnival Majestic which is the same size ship just newer.
The famous Carnival exhaust funnel. Rather large when you get up close to it.
The Seattle Space Needle as seen from the ship
The Seattle skyline just before we set sail.
Backing out of the dock and heading north to Alaska.
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Walt
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2012 : 6:13:49 PM
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Still Day One as we did a bit of a tour of the inside of the ship. Here is where I should have changed lenses but I'm lazy. I used the 55-300MM telephoto lens almost the entire cruise.
The Casino wasn't very large on this ship. We guessed that was because Carnival caters towards families and kids don't evidently gamble that much.
Looking up from Deck 2 through the central atriam to the roof of Deck 9.
Glass elevators in the lobby.
Looking down at Deck 2 and the bar flies. Heck we haven't even left port yet and they are gathered.[:-bigeyes2]
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Walt
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CN6401
Crew Chief
Canada
946 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2012 : 10:21:11 PM
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Walt,
3000+ photos, you're just as crazy as I am.
We did the same trip except for Seattle. We started and finished in Vancouver.
My wife lovingly referred to me as the Official Photographer to document our trip, so I ended up also 3000+ photos.
Crazy things these new digital cameras, man if that was 35mm film it would probably only be 4 maybe 5 rolls of 36 and hope they turned out.
Both my wife and I would do this cruise again in a flash, we liked it that much.
Ralph |
Growing old is mandatory . . . growing up is optional
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A Touch of Yesterday©..............Weathered Rail Cars. |
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BigLars
Fireman
USA
7480 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2012 : 11:02:34 PM
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Walt,
Great pictures. My son and I took almost eight thousand pictures on our last cruise to Alaska. When film was king I took seven rolls in three weeks in ten countries in Europe. Love the digital age. I hope you have some great whale pictures.
Larry |
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MarkF
Engineer
USA
9327 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2012 : 08:33:12 AM
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| Walt, I will be following this closely. I have always wanted to travel to Alaska by either cruise or motorhome, but as yet, have not made it. I have been to Seattle many times as my brother lives just outside of Seattle. A beautiful city! |
Mark
See my homepage at http://home.comcast.net/~prrndiv/
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fireman93514
Engine Wiper
USA
299 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2012 : 10:36:14 AM
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Nice shots Walt. We did the cruise for our 40th anniversery last year. I was awesome.
My wife is a native of the state, or I should say territory which is what it says on
her birth certificate. |
John |
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fireman93514
Engine Wiper
USA
299 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2012 : 10:37:34 AM
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| Maake that sentence "It was awesome." Whole different meaning. lol |
John |
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2012 : 9:16:00 PM
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Well, I had this all done once and when I posted it @(%#@ it was lost. We've been having issue with our Internet connection all day and now I'm recieving multiple emails with up to 10 copies of each one. The gremlins have me.
Anyway, I'll post these next photos in a couple of posts.
Day two was an "At Sea Day" in that we sailed about 10 miles or more off of Vancouver Island in the Pacific. Not much land to see from out there.[:-bigeyes2]
Day three was different as we sailed back into the Inner Passage during the night.
This is some of the Mainland scenery as we sailed north towards Tracy Arm Fjord of the Sawyer Glacia.
US Pilot boat coming along side as we have now entered Alaskan waters having left Canadian waters at this point. The pilot is require the entire trip until we return to this point.
Beautiful mountains all around as we sail into Tracy Arm Fjord. The Fjord is about fifty miles deep into the mainland to the glacia.
Here's a shot to give you an idea of the size of these mountains as we sail up the fjord. The ship is 12 decks high, 963 feet long and 106 feet wide but is dwarfed by these mountains.
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Walt
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2012 : 9:25:52 PM
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Here's more photos as we sail into Tracy Arm Fjord.
Can you see the fellow in the trees?
Here's a better look, I'll zoom in. Yep, an eagle. There were two of them in that tree as we approached but one flew away.
Water falls are everywhere you look. Alaska gets 100" of rain and 100" of snow a year. They don't get it all at once but a continuous drizzle most of the time. They thanked us for bringing some sunshine.
Again, the majestic mountains. I probably have 300 photos of these mountains and valleys in the Fjord. Each one is totally different and beautiful.
The valleys are round cut not 'V' cut like in the lower 48. This is from the glacias. Rivers cut a 'V' shape valley but not glacias.
The mountains just seem to get higher and higher the further we go into the fjord. Check the sequence of the photos and look at the plant life. You will notice it goes from trees to scrub to almost grass the further in we go. Also the further in we go the colder it gets.
More in the next posting.
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Walt
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Edited by - Rusty Stumps on 07/24/2012 08:32:17 AM |
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/23/2012 : 9:44:48 PM
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You may also notice the ice floating in that last picture above. Those are pieces off the glacier that we are heading to and are rather large.
Again, here's a photo to give you some perspecive on the size of the mountains. Also notice these have permanent snow caps so they are rather tall.
When the glaciers were in this fjord some time back they broke off boulders and pulled them along as they moved. These marks on the sides of the mountain walls are from those boulders imbedded in the glacier ice. Also, the green color of the water is the real color. This is caused by the "glacier flower" which is ground down rocks. If the water was scooped up and allowed to settle you'd have clear water and a thick crust of mud on the bottom.
There's the Left Arm of Sawyer Glacier and it's still about two miles or more ahead of us.
This island in the front will give you an idea of the size of the glacier. The face of the glacier is higher than the ship is tall or around 200-250 feet tall.
Here's a large floating iceberg from the glacier. remember only 10% of it shows above the water line. We had to proceed very slowly to avoid these.
mor in the next post. |
Walt
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/24/2012 : 11:41:00 AM
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Final photos of the Tracy Arm Fjord and the left arm of the Sawyer Glacier.
Here we are about a mile or so away from the actaul glacier face. This is as close as we can go because of the icebergs. The right most corner of the glacier face carved and fell into the fjord but unfortunately I was looking the other way or something when it happened.
The intreped travelers pose for their photo in front of Sawyer Glacier.
Yet another perspective of the glacier taken from our cabin balcony as we head out of the fjord.
Next thread posting will be photos from Skagway and the TRAINS.
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Walt
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Edited by - Rusty Stumps on 07/24/2012 11:43:39 AM |
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2012 : 1:01:30 PM
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The morning of the fourth day found us in WET Skagway. Skagway is 4 block wide and 12 blocks long. That's all they can fit between the mountains as this is an antient glacier path. There is only one road in and out of Skagway and that connects to the Alkan Highway in Canada.
The room porters entertain us each evening when they turn down the bed by leaving us some kind of animal made out of folded towels.
In the early 1900's when a ship first docked in Skagway they would have a sign painted on the side of the rock hill that runs right along the side of the docks. The wall is covered with all kinds of them, here's one.
The tracks come right down the dock past the ships to the end. They only backed the diesels down the dock as it was too much working three trains through it all. So, we had to take a bus into town to where the steam train was sitting.
If you look REAL close, about middle picture, you can see the cars of the steam train near 'downtown Skagway'.
Here's a closer look if you can't see it.
One of the Diesel excursions ready to head out off the dock. They ran two of these and one steam that day. One diesel train ran behind us and did pretty much the same thing; into Canada, turn around, come back to Skagway. We never got off the train. The other sent a bus load of people up the highway to the Canadian Customs Office. The train ran up to that point also then they exchanged passengers. These people had to go through Canadian Customs, we did not.
A bit of a perspective on the size of the Ship to the size of the Rail Cars. Note that is is the smallest of the Carnival ships as the biggest is twice the size.
Spare propeller blades and a spare anchor just incase we needed them!
Also a bit of a perspecitve on the cloud cover at Skagway. These are at around 500 feet.
Again, something to relate to on the size of the ships. Our cabin was up on the deck just below the one that sort of juts out. We were on the other (Port) side. How to remember the sides of the ship; "in the old days the sailors drank all the rum so Port was Left!".
Everything, I mean EVERYTHING, in these parts must be shipped in and mostly by water as the railroad doesn't go that far.
Downtown Skagway with a diesel train passing through. Atually that's the bus/train heading out ahead of us.
Here we are heading out. More Later.
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Walt
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Edited by - Rusty Stumps on 07/25/2012 1:05:51 PM |
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Frederic Testard
Engineer
France
16524 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2012 : 5:34:21 PM
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| Wonderful pics, Walt. Apart from the landscapes, I must say I feel very impressed by the size of the ship and the pics you shot of her inside... |
Frederic Testard |
Edited by - Frederic Testard on 07/25/2012 6:26:56 PM |
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2012 : 5:46:34 PM
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Frederic, the camera I used, Nikon D5000 is going to be for sale as I've bought a bigger one with a much better lens. 
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Walt
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Rusty Stumps
Fireman
USA
5961 Posts |
Posted - 07/25/2012 : 9:09:26 PM
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We're on our way up and over White Pass into Canada. It will take a few thread posts to get all the photos on here so bear with me.
Obervation platform on a passenger car sitting on a siding as we roll by.
White Pass RR yard and shop facilities.
White Pass RR Engine repair facilites.
Old No. 52 2-6-0 sitting on display at the side.
General yard area of the White Pass RR.
Have no idea what the number of this engine was or the wheel arrangement.
Different angle on the loco remains.
House on a cliff in the woods with a waterfall in the front yard. Nice but I wonder how it is in the winter?
This is the Klondike River which we follow a good deal of the way up the mountain.
Here's a close up of the river as it flows down stream, to the left, as we climb on bye.
Steep climb and old No 73 was LOUD as she chuffed and puffed her way up that grade.
We are a bit higher now and here's a look back at Skagway and the harbor. If you look real close over on the left near the mountain you will see the cruise ship docked there.
A bridge we passed over a bit earlier which spans the river.
Opposite side of the river is the highway heading up over White Pass into Canada.
A bit further up that highway is the American Customs Office. This is the only flat ground they had before the Canadian border which is still five miles further up the road. That sign was painted by some students from Michigan in tribute to the Governor who sponsored their trip to White Pass. They snuck up there at night and painted the sign.
Bridial Veil Falls on the opposite side of the river valley flowing down off the mountains to the river below.
That's a rental cabin we are about to pass. There are a number of them along the line that you can rent to sleep in at night if you like hiking. There are window openings but no window glass or screens. The bears like it that way. I have a better shot I'll post later on the return leg of our trip.
Crossing the steel trestle. I may have posted this earlier in another thread.
No. 73 Entering a cloud as we rise higher.
No. 73 pokes it's nose into the tunnel. This is the last photo for this post. I'll do more tomorrow night or the next time permitting.
Hope you like the photos. More to come.
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Walt
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Alaskan Inside Passage Cruise 2012 Photos
